


Look At This Photograph

by acindra



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 05:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11224362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acindra/pseuds/acindra
Summary: Jeremy accidentally incites a contest to get the best picture of Michael





	Look At This Photograph

(Rich)

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer, Jeremy.”

Jeremy blinked and tore his gaze away from Michael, standing in line for lunch. “Sorry, what?”

Rich snorted. “I said take a picture, dumbass.”

“Of what?”

The rest of the table joined him in making exasperated noises.

“What?” Jeremy asked, looking around at all of them.

“If I didn’t know you were just oblivious, I’d think you’re stupid.” Chloe commented, Brooke nodding beside her.

“We could always take the pictures for you.” Jenna offered.

“We could make it a contest!” Jake pitched in. “Which I will win because I am the best, of course.”

“Please, I’ll kick your ass without even breaking a sweat.” Chloe told him.

Christine hummed, thoughtfully. “I think it’d be a really fun but who would judge it?” 

“Jeremy.” Jenna replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I’m completely lost. What pictures am I judging?”

“Of Michael,” They all told him.

Jeremy turned violently red. “Uhm. What.”

“If you’re not going to do anything about your crush, we’ll get you some pictures so you can always see him.” Brooke reached over the table to pat his shoulder.

“I don’t have a crush.” Jeremy squeaked. “And taking random pictures of people is creepy.”

Christine waved away his concern. “I think it’s romantic.”

“It’s not creepy if they don’t know.” Rich told him.

“No, I think that makes it creepier.”

“Anyways, do we want other people in on this or just us?” Jenna asked, tapping away at her phone already.

“It’d probably be easier if it’s just us.” Brooke said, sensibly. “Jeremy might break if he got pictures of him from the whole school.” She giggled at the thought.

“Let’s make the deadline Sunday?” Rich suggested.

“We can make Jeremy pick a winner when we go get frozen yogurt.” Christine agreed.

“Can I convince you guys to not do this?” Jeremy asked.

“Not do what?” Michael asked, coming up behind Jeremy. Jeremy scooted over so Michael had room to sit next to him.

The entire table fell silent.

Michael squished in next to Jeremy and looked around at their friends, expectantly. “What? Do I have shit on my face or something?” He asked, swiping at his face.

“Your face is fine.” Jeremy told him.

“Jeremy might say it even looks perfect.” Christine teased.

Michael turned to Jeremy. “Would you, now?”

Jeremy looked away. “Fine. Sure. Your face is perfect- like the sun or something.”

“Awww thanks, bro.” Michael gave him a one-armed hug.

“Say cheese.” Rich said suddenly.

Jeremy looked up in surprise just in time for the shutter sound to go off on Rich’s phone.

“That’s cheating.” Chloe accused, pointing a perfectly manicured nail at him.

Rich just laughed as he composed and sent the picture to Jeremy..

Jeremy’s phone beeped. 

“You gonna get that?” Brooke teased, to the enjoyment of everyone else.

Jeremy glared at the lot of them. “You’re my only real friend here.” He informed, Michael.

“And don’t you ever forget it.” He agreed, easily.

When lunch was over, Jeremy subtly checked his text messages and was greeted with the very cute picture of Michael hugging him with a grin on his face and the word ‘Perfect’ tacked on. He glanced around himself to make sure nobody was watching and saved it to a new album titled ‘The Michael Contest.”

He wouldn’t tell anybody- would barely admit it to himself- but he was looking forward to the pictures he would get that week.

(Christine)

Jeremy and Michael were over at Christine’s house, trying to study.

She had offered to tutor them in math, but kept getting distracted by the word problem scenarios. “I hope they build the ramp out of something sturdy.”

“It’s just a hypothetical.” Jeremy told her.

“I know, but if the ramp is built out of something like, say, cardboard, the first time they run something over it it’ll at the very least be bent which means we’d have to use a whole other formula to find the length of the hypotenuse!”

Michael made a frustrated noise and rested his head on the desk. “I just don’t understand how this makes sense to you.” He said, muffled by the table.

Jeremy rubbed him on the back, maybe a little longer than was strictly necessary.

Christine rambled off an explanation of the formula again.

Jeremy nodded as he reviewed the problem they had been working on.

Michael heaved a sigh and sat back up, flipping back a page in the textbook.

Jeremy leaned over to re-read the page as well.

Michael scanned the page. “There. What the fuck does that mean.” He asked, pointing at the page.

Christine looked up from her phone. “Sorry, what?” She acted like she had been playing a game.

Jeremy looked over and glared at her when he realized she had probably taken a picture.

Michael didn’t seem to notice or care. “That, Christine. What is that supposed to mean?”

Christine leaned forward so she could see where he was pointing. “That’s the length of the triangle.”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

“Well. Usually they tell you.” Jeremy said, pointing at one of the equations.

“Can it tell me why I have to learn this shit?”

“Probably not, it’s usually just a number.” She told him, patiently.

Michael sighed again.

(Jenna)

The group had planned to gather at a playground that was relatively in the middle of everyone’s neighborhoods.

Jeremy had been the first to arrive. He kicked around some of the mulch-y fake flooring that had long since decayed as he waited.

Eventually he went up to the set of playground bars and hung upside down on them.

“I see London, I see France.” Michael teased, coming up from behind him.

“Haha very funny.” Jeremy rolled his eyes, which made him a little dizzy.

“I’ll show you something funny.” Michael threatened, coming around to in front of Jeremy. He wiggled his fingers, inching them closer to Jeremy’s exposed stomach.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Oh, but I might.” He made a big show of trying to make a decision.

“This is the part where you kiss like in spiderman.” A new voice chipped in.

They both looked over to see Jenna, tapping away at her cell phone as always.

“Hey Jenna. I didn’t see you arrive.”

“Clearly.”

“Michael can you move, I’m starting to get dizzy.”

“Oh, sure.” Michael sidestepped and watched as Jeremy dismounted from the bars.

Jeremy wobbled a little as he stood there so Michael put a steadying hand on his shoulder. He shot him a grateful look. “Thanks.”

“Anytime bro. You good?”

“Yeah.”

“Awesome.”

And then Michael pounced, tickling Jeremy’s sides like there was no tomorrow.

As Jeremy’s shrieking laughter carried over to the nearby houses, Jenna took a picture of the two boys on the ground.

(Chloe)

They were over at Chloe’s house watching a movie.

“Hold still.” She hissed at Michael as she painted his fingernails. “If you keep moving I’m going to fuck this up and then there’ll be glitter everywhere. Do you know how hard it is to get glitter off of you?”

Michael smiled sheepishly. “Sorry! I’m just jumpy.”

“What he means is he’s a scaredy cat.” Jeremy told her.

“I am not.”

“Dude, you screamed when the killer showed up in the window.” Jeremy pointed out.

“Of course I screamed- it was a jumpscare!”

“Honestly, I don’t understand how you play horror games.”

“That’s because I’m controlling it. And also most of the horror games we play are pretty old so they’re not as realistic and creepy.” Michael mumbled.

“Alright, I’m done. Don’t touch anything for like ten minutes, ok?” Chloe pulled away from where she was leaned over Michael’s hands with a flourish.

“They look amazing.” Michael said, inspecting his nails.

“You mean they look fabulous.” Chloe corrected, capping her nail polish bottles.

“Yes. Fabulous. Thanks.”

“No problem, it was fun.”

Michael got up so he could flop down next to Jeremy on the loveseat he was sitting on and glanced at the movie. “Do we have to keep watching this?”

“Just a little longer- I want to see if the blonde girl manages to find a phone.”

“She doesn’t. I think she gets stabbed in the hallway before she finds it.” Chloe told him.

“Well that’s lame.”

Michael sighed and curled up into Jeremy’s side.

“I’ll protect you from the big bad killer.” Jeremy teased, throwing an arm around him.

“You fucking better.”

They were so engrossed in the movie, neither of them noticed Chloe snapping a picture.

(Jake)

They were outside of Jake’s house, waiting for him to be ready to go to school.

Rich had a dentist appointment that morning and was unable to take Jake, whose legs were still injured, to school.

Jeremy side eyed a large pile of leaves that were in the middle of the yard. “I really want to jump in that.” He muttered to Michael.

“Right?”

“I probably shouldn’t.” Jeremy reasoned with himself. “I’ll be covered in leaves at school.”

“Plus we don’t know what’s in there. Could be bugs crawling all over.” He wiggled his fingers.

“Really shouldn't.” Jeremy said again.

“On three?” Michael asked, setting down his backpack.

Jeremy nodded, and set his down as well.

“One, two, three!”

They both ran and leaped into the pile of leaves.

“You idiots better not get leaves everywhere.” Jake told them, leaning on one of his crutches in the doorway of his house as they resurfaced. “I just raked that.”

They both startled and looked over. 

“Oh hey Jake.”

“Are we going to go to school or are you guys going to be five year olds?”

Jeremy threw a handful of leaves at Michael’s face. “Nah. We’re at least seven.”

(Brooke)

“There’s a zombie on your left, shoot it!” Jeremy yelled, as he fought off a horde of zombies.

“Quick, shoot it in the head while it’s down.” Michael advised, pointing at the screen.

“Ok.” Brooke tried to do as directed, but missed her shot. “Shit.” she muttered as the zombie crawled closer.

“Shoot it, shoot it!” Michael yelled. “You’re gonna die!”

“Damnit!” She threw her hands up in the air as she missed her second shot, as well, and her character was eaten by a zombie. “How the hell do you guys play this so well?”

“Lots of practice.” Jeremy told her, pausing the game.

“Here, I want to watch you two.”

Michael took the proffered controller and they restarted the level.

Brooke watched on in awe as the two of them decimated zombie after zombie without breaking a sweat.

“A lot of it is reaction time and hand eye coordination.” Michael told her, as he shot a zombie in the head. “Plus since you’re not used to using a controller, it’s probably really hard for you to get it to do what you want.”

She nodded. “Thanks for showing me how to play anyways. It was fun! Until I got eaten.”

“Don’t worry.” Jeremy said, looking away from the screen to grin at her. “You shoulda seen Michael when we first started playing. He was awful-”

Michael shoved at him. “Dude I was five.”

Brooke laughed as they continued to fight, both the zombie horde and each other.

(Michael)

Michael was playing a game on his phone with it propped up on a box across from his bed where Jeremy was working on his homework. When asked why he had it propped up, he mumbled something about gravity and went back to tapping at his phone.

Eventually Michael abandoned his set up and moved to sit on the bed too.

“Hey Jeremy?” he asked.

“Yeah, what’s up?” He said, not looking up from his notes.

“Uh. D-Do you like me?” Michael couldn’t help but stutter as he asked the question he had been asking himself for years out loud.

Jeremy froze. He looked up slowly. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean.” Michael searched Jeremy’s face for an answer.

Jeremy swallowed. “Would you hate me if I… If I said yes?”

“I could never hate you.” Michael informed him. “Especially when I like you too.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

They smiled dumbstruck smiles at each other.

Michael moved Jeremy’s homework over and scooted closer. “Can… um. Can I kiss you?”

Jeremy blushed and nodded “Yeah.” He said, breathlessly.

As they leaned in together, Jeremy distantly heard the shutter of a camera going off, but he dismissed it as he was thoroughly distracted by Michael’s lips.

(The Decision)

The whole group was gathered at Pinkberry, eagerly awaiting the results of the contest.

They waited until Michael excused himself to the bathroom before looking eagerly to Jeremy.

“Alright so the entries are as follows. Rich took that picture in the cafeteria with Michael hugging me. Christine took a picture of us studying. Jenna took a picture of Michael tickling me in the park. Chloe took a picture of us watching a scary movie- you captured Michael’s new nail polish really nicely, by the way.”

Chloe smirked. “Thank you.”

“Jake took a picture of us jumping into a pile of leaves. I still don’t know how you managed to rake the leaves in the first place, seeing as you’re on crutches but…”

“I had help.”

Rich snorted. “He means he made me do it.”

“And Brooke took a picture of us playing video games. Yanno. I’m pretty sure the contest was supposed to be about getting pictures of Michael, not the two of us.”

Jenna waved away his complaint. “That’s just semantics. Tell us who won.”

“Ok. So the winner is-” Jeremy was interrupted as his phone beeped. He checked the text message he received. “Michael?”

Everyone groaned.

“What?”

“How did Michael win?”

“This game is rigged.”

Jeremy held a hand up to silence their protests.

“Michael just sent me a picture, and it clearly wins the contest. Sorry guys.”

“Show us this picture, then.”

Jeremy flushed. “Uh. Do I have to?”

“Yes!” Everyone chorused.

Jeremy turned his phone around so they could all see the picture Michael had taken of their first kiss.

Everyone groaned again as they conceited defeat.

“So what do I win?” Michael asked, coming up to the table and sliding into his seat next to Jeremy.

“We never really decided on what the prize was going to be.” Jeremy told him, shrugging.

“It wasn’t about what we were going to win, but that we were going to win.” Jake told him.

“How did you even find out about the contest?” Jeremy asked.

“More importantly, when did you two get together?” Chloe asked.

“Yesterday. And I was looking for a picture on your phone when I found a folder called ‘The Michael Contest’. It was pretty easy to figure out what was going on. I thought everyone was acting weird this week. Also, can I just say taking pictures of people without them knowing is really creepy?”

Jeremy nodded. “That’s what I said!”

“I think the prize should be a kiss.” Christine butted in suddenly

Jeremy looked at Michael, blushing again.

Michael was not much better. He shrugged.

Everyone looked on expectantly as the two leaned closer.

Jeremy suddenly changed his path and kissed Michael on the cheek, loudly.

The group was startled into laughter.

Michael looked disgruntled, but before he could say anything, Jeremy swooped back in for a proper kiss. 

“Awww.”

“Dude that’s so gay.”

“I mean, yeah. Duh.”

“I like gay people.”

Michael was pretty satisfied that he had won a lot more than just the contest.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic, please check out the other 30 BMC fics I've written!
> 
> Feel free to hit me up on tumblr ([ acindra ](http://acindra.tumblr.com))- I also made a crocheted doll of [ Michael! ](http://acindra.tumblr.com/post/161391774925)
> 
> [ Bonus George Salazar and Michael!Doll pic ](https://twitter.com/georgesalazar/status/880209460962185216)


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